Database Collection

The database has been an on going experiment. Over the past couple of months I have been culling media sources for the presence of elevators. So far I've amassed a rather robust collection of images, quotes, passages and film clips which demonstrate how elevators pervade social and cultural life both on screen and off. Resources such as Vertical Transportation and Up, Down and Across have been helpful in the pursuit of mechanical knowledge and books such as Vertical reveal that others have been intrigued by the space, place and motions of elevator systems in film and fiction.

I have been loosely grouping my discoveries into genres > thriller, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy, romance and so on. What I've found most intriguing is how elevators (the cab, the shaft and the mechanisms) are utilized in film-- as a vantage point, as a theatre, as a portal, as a brothel etc.

In action movies the elevator is practically cliche. It is the break down of lift systems that offer the opportunity to occupy areas of the building formerly meant for machines. Building penetrations and invasions occur through the labyrinths of shafts that offer protection by their darkness. These films share narrative and cinematic traits with horror/thriller films. The elevator in free fall, plunging wildly to the dismay of its occupants, is a scene familiar in both genres. However, in the action film, the hero/ine eludes death by clinging haphazardly to the frayed remains of the rope some twenty stories up. The horror film reveals an elevator possessed. A manevolant force plunges the elevator occupants to a bloody hell. The invisible technologies that control the elevator run amok, reinforcing the dooms-day prophecy that humans will pay dearly for an ever increasing reliance on machines.

The love and comedy genres tend to portray the awkward social conventions we display when stuck with strangers in a confined space. The journey upward becomes curious and getting stuck a harmless, erotic moment. The elevator experience transcends the mundane to become an act of fate, uniting disparate individuals on a path to love.

I love the trailer I have for this one short film called eleVATE where "An insecure loner develops an unhealthy obsession with a voice activated elevator which leads to a disturbing connection". What appears to happen (since I haven't seen the actual short yet) is that the elevator becomes infatuated with the hero, and ends up jealously executing his human love interest.

For me, the most intriguing works in the database are the science fiction/fantasy books and films. As a group they create a varied continuum that reveals the elevator primarily as a portal of sorts. There is something about the encapsulated vertical motion of elevators, that we enter in one space and exit in another, that lends itself to the otherworldly, or in the case of films such as Being John Malkovich, lead us to the soul. Perhaps it is in these films more explicitly that the elevator reveals the same power of metamorphosis as the grotto. Like the grotto the elevator becomes a harbor for the fantastical; a passage way to a new reality.

Grottoes were (and perhaps still are) invitations to expect the unexpected. I am beginning to suspect elevators offer a similar invitation. I am interested in how the myth of the elevator, cultivated through cultural representations of the mechanism in film and fiction, might impact the behavior of the machine. How might architecture and elevator technology reveal these cultural narrative myths within the confines of a building that possesses it's own unique histories. Might elevator function embed its own narrative into the existing building story in a way that reveals the potency of the elevator space.

Just as the epic of Odysseus lends myth and magic to the grotto of the Emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga, the elevators in the JR Watkins building will inscribed a similar narrative which will inform the architecture of the evolving spaces. The metamorphic tradition of the grotto will infuse the elevator, the resulting built spaces and the occupants of the existing building.

[ On a side note, the original database was built in Appleworks 6.2. I liked the Appleworks platform because of its simple, customizable, straightforward templates -- i didn't want the glossy templates of Bento or FileMaker. Unfortunately though, the database had to be ported to FileMaker in the end because Appleworks kept crashing in OS X. ]

To view a .pdf of the existing Elevator Catalog database see below.

Database Catalog - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: Database Catalog

The Narrative of Space

The statues in the Sacro Boscro are guideposts along a path of discovery. Each statue, each carefully carved Latin phrase, each gotto-esque cave demarcates the story of loss, of pain and perpetual misery of the garden's creator. The careful reading of the symbols chosen for the garden is an attempt to have a conversation with it's creator. Understanding, however, remains elusive to those who are unfamiliar with the ancient stories and myths whose lessons and tragedies are manifested in the meandering garden. Without this shared knowledge the poetics of the space are only partially revealed.

I am interested in this poetic interpretation. The idea that conveying ideas and meaning to others who partake of a space might be possible, convincing, and beautiful. The grotto is the architectural participant in this landscape. It is a space that captures the enchantment of the garden within walls, ceilings and floors. Through shared understandings of myths, legends, histories and tales we suggest potent meanings of space and place to visitors. We create specific rather than generic spaces, spaces full of enchantment?

Images from www.artandarchitecture.org

side tracking...fixing a few things up

24: Lift Lessons

The doors open-- what happens? The void of the mouth appears before the expectant individual. Entering is just the first step. We assume we will get off somewhere. But what if the destination is within. Is the space of here the same as that of there. I expect not. Does it take you closer to the light?

Evans, Richard. "Glossary." Up Down Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks. Ed. Alisa Goetz. London: Merrell Ltd., 2003. 203-208.

23: Potential Site

A play on a theatre stage is structured as a fixed sequence of acts played out in a series of scenes. The acts are a rigid sequence that propagates the story; it is within each scene, however, where the opportunity for improvisation and adaptation takes place. The dramatic effect of the play is intimately linked to the interplay between story and stage.

Like the grotto, the stage is an object of enchantment that suggests something inherently transformative. Lighting, motion, and sound create spectacle and reveal the unpredictable. In these moments we are spurred to new associations and new meaning, we are engaged in the moment more completely than we are in the everyday.

The site is the stage for my evolving substrate. The site will offer it's own conditions for architectural presence--dictating relationships (or the lack thereof) between environmental, social, economic, historical and cultural players. I'm currently researching a few buildings in the downtown, and another in Point Douglas as potential sites for this project.

1. Scotia Bank Building_209 Portage Street.
2. JR Watkins Warehouse Building_90 Annabelle Street.
3. Evergreen Towers_11 Evergreen Place

22: systems

Figure 1: Typical wiring for a unipolar stepper motor.

Stepper motors will be used to control vertical motion within the substrate, raising and lowering components to the desired levels via a pulley system. Stepper motors provide more torque at lower speeds than DC motors. They are capable of moving a precise distance or a specific number of rotations. They also have very high torque when stopped (the motor acts like a break). This will allow parts of the substrate to be suspended without slipping. There is a rule of thumb that can be used to determine the lifting capacity of the stepper motor: holding torque X 0.65 = dynamic torque (g-cm). This means that if your motor has a pulley with a radius of 1cm then the motor can lift a weight of x grams hanging on the string.

To control the stepper, you apply voltage to each of the coils in a specific sequence. The issue is understanding the orientation of the wires--ie. which wire goes to which coil. The schematics below details how to wire the stepper to a Darlington transistor array. The array controls the direction of the motor. An Arduino micro controller will be used to drive the motor. There is rudimentary programming code here.

/*
Stepper Motor Controller
language: Wiring/Arduino

This program drives a unipolar or bipolar stepper motor.
The motor is attached to digital pins 8 and 9 of the Arduino.

The motor moves 100 steps in one direction, then 100 in the other.

Created 11 Mar. 2007
Modified 7 Apr. 2007
by Tom Igoe

O'Sullivan, Dan, and Tom Igoe. Physical Computing: Sensing and Contolling Physical World with Computers. Boston: Thomson Course Technology, 2004. 260-265.


















This is the bipolar stepper motor I rescued from an Epson printer. The first and third and second and fourth wires are connect (8.5 ohms). I've ordered SN754410 dual H-bridge(s), which will be used to reverse the polarity in the coils--and the direction of the motor.

21: substrate

The substrate is a simple investigation into a static system. The purpose of this investigation is to learn about an existing phenomenon so that it might be re-tooled, re-examined, exposed, and re-interpreted. Some questions regarding the structural condition of the substrate came out of a discussion with architect/engineer Lancelot Coar.

1. Believing in the unknown: There is an ubiquitous phenomenon that is being discussed, which is the motion of moving up and down. This phenomenon happens within living systems. How do things flow up? Grow up? What forces are acting on this motion?

2. How does the substrate/skin respond to itself: How is the structure effected by what is happening within it? Is it deformed, strained, uneffected. What are the variables at play? How does the interior condition effect the exterior condition? What is the position of the interior in relation to the exterior--does this remain constant?

3. What is the experience?: What is our spatial awareness of this system? Architecture is in the activation, in the revealing of the space between.

Haruki Murakami ------> Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1987)

"The elevator continued its impossible slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure: it was too slow that all sense of direction simply vanished. It could have been going down for all I knew, or maybe it wasn't moving at all. But let's just assume it was going up. Merely a guess. Maybe I'd gone up twelve stories, then down three? Maybe I'd circled the globe. How would I know?